The present invention relates to cooling apparatus for water-cooled engines, and more particularly to a cooling apparatus for water-cooled internal combustion engines especially suited for use in agricultural tractors and the like.
In recent years, there has been a movement from air-cooled engines to water-cooled engines in agricultural machines such as small tractors, "ride-on" mowers and the like. This has been true in view of the reduced noise level of water-cooled engines and stabilization of engine performance. In these circumstances it becomes important to prevent the radiator of a water-cooled engine from clogging because of its use in an environment where dried grass, straw, gratings, and seeds of grass are flying around. This is particularly important where the engine is mounted in a relatively low, small-sized working machine such as a mower or a garden tractor.
Such a tractor usually has a screen in front of the radiator, and the conventional approach taken in the prior art has been largely to use a finer dust-proof screen or to corrugate the screen itself. However, dried grass, dandelion seeds and the like which are small and lightweight will still pass through such a screen, some being caught by the core of the radiator and clogging it. Further, a fine mesh screen itself may be clogged and the cleaning of the screen has been very troublesome.